"Why are you telling me these things?" he demanded, his voice sounding strange and somehow wrong in the hard, tiled space of the bathroom. "Why the fuck do you think I care what you want?"
"Because you're sitting here letting me clean up your wound. Letting me touch you. Letting me talk about Theo. Because everything I've just given you, you could have taken for yourself and you didn't." Her throat moved, the look in her eyes unflinching. "I don't know why, whether it's a weird, fucked-up case of Stockholm Syndrome or what, but … I trust you, Elijah."
He felt the words slide through him like a sharp, heavy blade, transfixing him.
Trust. Holy fuck. Was she insane? Why the hell would she trust a monster like him?
"You shouldn't." His hands tightened on her hips. "Trusting me is the last thing you should do."
"I know that. Intellectually that's obvious. But whether I should or not, the truth is that I do."
The barbed wire inside his chest was painful, cutting him to ribbons.
You aren't worthy of anyone's trust …
"It changes nothing." He kept his tone harsh.
Her mouth was so soft-looking, so red. He wanted to tug her head down and taste it.
"Perhaps not. But … I've never told anyone about Theo before. You're the only one who knows."
The wire pulled tight, digging in, and he opened his mouth to say something else, some lie about how he didn't give a shit. But that wasn't what came out.
"He killed Marie." The words were out before he had a chance to take them back. "Your father and Jericho, they killed my wife."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gabriel poured scotch into one of the Second Circle's fine crystal tumblers then carried it over to the woman who sat on the couch, her black hair glossy in the firelight coming from the hearth in front of her.
His beautiful Honor, who was looking pale and worried. Well, fuck, he could relate. He was feeling a bit pale and worried himself.
They were in the Nine Circle's favorite meeting place, a room in Alex St. James's club, the Second Circle. With wood-paneled walls, tall library bookshelves, wingback chairs and a long leather sofa, the space was reminiscent of a Victorian gentleman's study rather than one of the most modern and exclusive private members' clubs in New York.
Alex himself, Honor's brother and Gabriel's best friend, stood in front of the fire, his arms folded, watching his sister. He didn't look so worried, but Alex always hid his feelings well. Then again, Gabriel recognized the gleam in the other man's too-blue eyes. Whether he hid it or not, Alex was concerned for his sister.
Sister …
The word echoed weirdly inside him. He was still getting used to the thought of a sibling, had barely had much time to process it at all what with everything that had been going on. But now, after meeting with that prick Elijah, the fact that he had a half sister was smacking him full in the face.
A sister who was currently being held captive by a cold-eyed asshole who was using her for some kind of revenge plan.
Gabriel knew revenge, had spent a good portion of his fucked-up life pursuing it himself, so he understood where the guy was coming from. But the fact that he was using Gabriel's newly discovered half sibling to get it had destroyed every bit of sympathy Gabriel had for him, not that there was much to start with anyway.
Elijah Hunt had nearly gotten two of Gabriel's friends killed, and now he had Gabriel's sister. That made Gabriel more than pissed. That made him fucking enraged.
"Are you sure she was okay?" Honor took the tumbler from him, staring up at him as she did so.
"He said she was alive." Gabriel sat down next her, sliding an arm around her waist and drawing her close. He fucking hated seeing her so unhappy. It made him want to kill someone. "I believed him."
"But he wouldn't say where she was or why he had her?"
"No. I was going to shoot the bastard right then and there, but he said he had Violet under guard."
"And you believed him?" Alex asked.
Gabriel flicked his friend a glance. "I could have bluffed him out, but I didn't want to do that without more information. Anyway, we know the area she's in and Eva's trying to see if we can pinpoint it further by using Violet's cell phone signal."
"I thought we couldn't find that anymore?"
"Yeah, but Eva thinks she can pick up its last known position. She's working on it now."
By the fire, Alex was standing very still. "You know, I've been trying to figure out why that asshole was so familiar," he murmured. "Even back in Monte Carlo I was certain I'd seen him before."
Gabriel raised a brow. "So?"
"So, I did some searches of my own. Through the Second Circle membership records on the off chance it might throw up something." Alex had the fucking smuggest look on his face.
"What?" Gabriel demanded. "You found something?"
Honor's attention had shifted from the fire to her brother, her body tensing against Gabriel's.
Alex's blue gaze gleamed. "Yeah, actually, I did. When the club first opened ten years ago, we did a massive publicity drive and pretty much had thousands of membership applications even before the doors opened. I went through each and every application because I wanted to vet them personally. Hell, I even interviewed some of the applicants before I granted approval."
Gabriel watched his friend's face. "Don't tell me he was one of them?"
"He wasn't," Alex said softly. "But his wife was."
"What?" Honor was frowning at her brother. "Stop being cryptic, Alex."
"I was looking back at some old pictures of the opening party we had, and he's there in the crowd with his arm around this tall brunette. And it wasn't until I saw that picture that I remembered that the reason he's so familiar is because I used to see him around here in the early Second Circle days."
"But you said he wasn't a member," Gabriel murmured.
"No, he wasn't. I tried doing a search on his name, but turned up nothing. He wasn't a member. Which means that the only way he could have been at that party was if he was someone's guest."
"So, the brunette … ?" Honor took another sip of her scotch.
"I went through the names and photos of the first lot I granted membership status to. She was there. Marie Archer. A high-up in one of the big investment banks. She had a guest signed up on a permanent basis, her husband. A guy called Kane Archer." Alex paused, the firelight leaping across his face. "Kane Laurent Elijah Archer."
Gabriel narrowed his gaze at the other man. "Shit. So maybe that's why we haven't been able to turn up anything on him? We're looking at the wrong name?"
"That was always the risk. Zac certainly thought that was a possibility."
Honor leaned forward and put her scotch down on the coffee table in front of her. "Did you find anything on him then?"
"Yes. Kane Archer was into venture capital. Started out young from what I could find on him and was doing extremely well with a firm he started up himself." Alex dropped his arms and began to pace in front of the fire. "He used to come here a lot with his wife, judging from the records. I remember him, but my memories are a little fuzzy." He flashed a brief, self-deprecating smile. "I was going through an … experimental phase at the time so pretty much all my memories are fuzzy."
Honor rolled her eyes. "Thanks for sharing, Alex. Okay, so what happened to him then? How did he get from Kane Archer, venture capitalist to Elijah Hunt, mercenary?"
Alex stopped pacing. "That is the sixty-four-million-dollar question."
"Did you give the name to Zac?" Gabriel leaned back against the couch, still holding onto Honor. They needed to get on top of this because the more they knew about this asshole, the quicker they could find some way of getting Violet away from him.
Alex gave him a long-suffering look. "Of course I gave the name to Zac."
"What about his wife?" Honor asked quietly. "What happened to her?"
"I gave her name to Zac too and-" A chiming sound came from Alex's pocket. "And that should be him right now." Pulling his phone out, he hit the answer button. "Yo, Zac. You got anything? Yeah, okay. Putting you on speaker now." Moving over to the coffee table, he put the phone down.
"Okay, so here's what Eva and I found." Zac's deep voice with its clipped, English accent filled the room. "Kane Archer apparently died in a car accident seven years ago. The police found his car overturned and ablaze in a quiet backstreet. They determined he'd crashed it while drunk and probably grief-stricken after the disappearance of his wife. Archer reported her missing two months prior to his death. She vanishes while at dinner with Elijah present."